{"id":9628,"date":"2024-01-15T19:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T19:00:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Future-of-High-School-Nordic-Skiing-53670337\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=9628","title":{"rendered":"Facing another warm and wet winter, Concord High\u2019s\u00a0Nordic ski team continues to adapt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Concord
Concord Nordic skier Phoebe Dater-Roberts balances on a small mound of snow as she warms up during practice.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Members
Members of the Concord Nordic Ski team run among the scattered snow piles along the sidewalk of Auburn Street in Concord on Friday. Team members split up and did an hour run to train for upcoming meets.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Nordic
Nordic ski team captain Chloe Gudas (center) leads the team in a crab walk with bands as the members warm up in the Concord High parking lot before going a 45-minute run on Friday.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

It\u2019s no secret that Nordic skiing has become more difficult in the Concord area than ever before. It\u2019s also no secret why.<\/p>\n

Warmer temperatures mean less snow and more rain, like just last week when Concord received over eight inches of snow on Jan. 7 but saw it washed away with heavy rain two days later.<\/p>\n

The Concord High Nordic ski team has already had one event canceled, though it\u2019s generally still been able to practice outdoors. About three times a week, the Crimson Tide will travel up to Proctor Academy or Holderness School, where snowmaking equipment allows the student-athletes to stay on their skis.<\/p>\n

They also had their annual four-day ski camp in Craftsbury, Vt., over the holiday break, providing another chance to gain valuable reps outdoors.<\/p>\n

In other words, the opportunities to ski outdoors still exist, but it\u2019s required more travel and a little more advance planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen the changes,\u201d Concord head coach Erin Waters said. \u201cI know a lot of teams are really struggling. I think there\u2019s this mentality that we know that it\u2019s going to be really hard to find snow every year. It\u2019s sort of what we expect at this point.\u201d <\/p>\n

Beaver Meadow Golf Course is the preferred location for high school practices, but without snowmaking equipment yet, opportunities to ski \u2014 like last Monday or Tuesday \u2014 there are fewer and further between.<\/p>\n

Adding snowmaking and lights is the next phase in the local nonprofit Ski the Beav\u2019s quest to expand opportunities for cross country skiing in Concord, but that could still take several years to come together.<\/p>\n

And as Waters explained, it is becoming increasingly challenging to not have snowmaking and still have reliable chances to ski.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does seem like that\u2019s the direction we\u2019re heading right now,\u201d she said of the reliance on snowmaking.<\/p>\n

One positive of the sport\u2019s evolution she added, though, is that the team has more time for dry-land training and weightlifting, which has helped the skiers better prepare themselves for when they do eventually hit the snow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things you can do dry-land training that are sometimes more valuable than being on snow itself, because it\u2019s really hard to get the fundamentals of skiing without having some strength and some idea of technique and general body positioning,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying I would love the entire season to be like that, but we can make a lot of progress with our athletes bounding, roller skiing and weightlifting.\u201d <\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing that replaces the experience of competing outside on what feels like endless trails of snow, but these changes represent the stark reality the sport faces.<\/p>\n

Nordic skiing has already evolved in recent years \u2014 and will continue to do so in future years \u2014 but Waters said it\u2019s all happened without any abrupt or major changes. Rather, they\u2019re mostly reacting and doing the best they can to deal with these obstacles as they come.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s something that we\u2019ve been doing for years now kind of quietly, and I think it\u2019s just a continuation of that,\u201d she said of the sport\u2019s evolution. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re suddenly going to completely do an overhaul. I think we\u2019re going to continue to change and adapt (during) the year that we\u2019re given. We kind of have to take it year by year.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret that Nordic skiing has become more difficult in the Concord area than ever before. It\u2019s also no secret why.Warmer temperatures mean less snow and more rain, like just last week when Concord received over eight inches of snow on Jan. 7…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":9629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=188]Eric Rynston-Lobel[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[504,22],"tags":[91,24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-9628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-centerpiece-2-cm","category-sports","tag-concord-high-school","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/42699280-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9630,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9628\/revisions\/9630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9628"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=9628"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}